The ability to process and retrieve information varies widely among students for many reasons. Many explanations concerning the discourse in literacy learning are associated with neurological and/or cultural deficits. Variations in the speed and capability, particularly of students learning to read, has been a problem in modern society which relies upon the teaching professional to teach several students of diverse abilities in a classroom atmosphere. Learning to read requires multiple skills, particularly the visual association of text with meaning, the association of meaning with sound, and the connection of content with literal and inferential understandings and application.
A common method of teaching reading in group environments is for the teacher to model read or have individual students read aloud selected passages of text, with other students following the written text, the teacher correcting the student's pronunciation of text during recitation and contributing restatements of literal and inferential meaning of the textual matter being read. Each student in the class gets the benefit of each other student's recitation and confirmation of the correct pronunciation from the teacher as well as contextual literal and inferential meanings of the words being viewed and spoken.
It is not unusual that a group classroom comprises learning disabled with reading deficits, low-achieving and non-disabled students, that during the course of such students following text being recited by another that individual students become confused from visually identifying a word or group of words in text while they are being recited, or lost because of comments made by the teacher regarding meaning of the text. In a typical classroom with young students, the focus of an individual student can be easily disrupted by external events or a failure to rapidly identify a word or phrase, or even unfamiliarity with a word or phrase, leaving the student confused as to where in the text the recitation has progressed at any given time during the recitation. In classrooms with learning disabled students, focus of an individual student is often subject to neurological problems which even further exacerbates the problem of individual students learning to read and presents even greater problems for a single teacher trying to teach two or more students in a session.
When individual students become confused as to what words or text are being recited, they are generally reluctant to alert the teacher and soon the student becomes hopelessly lost. Teachers generally control such problem by their skilled observation of students during the process, and their ability to intuitively recognize when a student has become confused. Usually the teacher interrupts the recitation or mingles among the students pointing to the place in the text where the recitation has progressed, to give the individual student a bearing. Intuitive recognition skills of teachers vary and interruption usually involves significant explanation on the part of the teacher to get all of the group of students back to the same spot, thus the process is only as good as the individual teacher and considerably slows the rate of teaching and minimizes the amount of time spent on reading.
Variability in literacy learning has been an ongoing concern. The teaching professional is left with the dichotomy of either slowing down the teaching process to accommodate the learning disabled or struggling non-disabled student to the disadvantage of the more skilled, or maintaining a fast pace of teaching wherein the less able fall behind. These variations in ability were responsible for the past underlying assumption that different textbooks for low, middle and high reading group instruction would be beneficial for literacy development of all students. Equally discouraging is the continuation of children's low achievement from the delivery of reading instruction.
Attempts have been made to form classes into more closely equivalent learning groups, but such equivalency is difficult to assess and can still work to the disadvantage of those who fall marginally within its boundaries.
Of particular concern are those struggling students who may have learning disabilities which require constant refocusing by the student to overcome. Even in an ideally equivalent grouping, such students tend to need more personal supervision and input from the teaching professional. Such needs are time consuming and undercut the economics and efficiencies of classroom teaching. School systems have sought to resolve the problem by augmenting their classroom staff with remedial reading and special education professionals who interact with individual students in separate sessions, in addition to and/or together with group classroom work. Such augmentation is expensive and can deny the struggling reader the full benefit of the classroom experience enjoyed by their classmates. To segregate children by ability stigmatizes and creates detrimental emotional problems which block motivation and becomes more harmful for academic growth.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved method for the teaching of reading skills which has application through a broad spectrum of students.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method for teaching reading which enables quick re-orientation of a student during textual reading lessons.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a method for enabling the teacher to quickly and effectively focus the student to a precise reading point.
These and other objects of the invention will be apparent from the following description of the invention.